Participants across both sessions ranked “advancing innovation” as a key motivator for partnering abroad. We asked participants to choose which strategies they were currently or most interested in pursuing to achieve this objective.

You can see the results from the poll below – most health systems are still focused on traditional clinical research, or advancing scientific knowledge, rather than creating net – new products. 

We know that the future financial environment will reward health systems that create and commercialize IP. In fact, we predict rapid growth in the number of systems entering into innovation or data sharing ecosystems as a means to achieving this advantage. Health systems are missing early opportunities to leverage existing partnerships to co-develop IP, such as clinical models and practices or AI tools, that they can license or sell to other providers. 

Health systems have an array of opportunities to generate revenue abroad—from providing consulting services, to managing foreign-owned organizations, to forming affiliations to increase inbound international patient volumes. The two most popular approaches, as you can see below, were consulting engagements and partnerships with foreign governments. 

These two responses point to polarizing approaches: Consulting engagements suggest an approach with a short-term exit strategy, while partnering with governments point to an ambition to establish a long-term presence in a market.

An effective international partnership approach requires intentionality—and health systems pursuing both strategies simultaneously will eventually have to make a choice about what their identity is the markets where they operate. In interviews, executives of health systems with decades-long partnership experience told us they have all had to make this trade-off recently. Their current, intentional approach  focuses their resources on only the activities and markets that best enable their organization to meet their other core objectives.   

Despite “delivering on mission” being one of the key motivators for partnering internationally, the poll results, as shown below, reveal that most health systems are still mainly focused on their local patients or are concentrating resources within fewer markets.

Respondents’ focus on their local patients is likely a sign of economic pressures pushing organizations to prioritize core business. But research interviews with leading systems suggest that it’s also a sign that demand for external expertise is shrinking in markets that were previously hotspots for mission-driven ventures as providers develop capabilities to deliver services domestically, such as countries across the Middle East.

Our position is that health systems’ focus on their local patients illustrates a common misconception that mission-driven international ventures don’t benefit local populations. On the contrary, health systems have shown for years that they can improve care for patients abroad and at home by practicing cultural humility and importing practices and knowledge from their international peers. Additionally, mission-driven ventures can be leveraged as a retention tool for staff who find opportunities to work with clinicians and patients abroad engaging.